Books published by EMP

in one of His ragesGod drowned the whole planet in His bath watersaid   Look at what you made me dosaid   This is the only way to get you cleansaid   This is an act of loveHe left the obedient to float likerubber duckslike all toxic relationshipslove was confused with mercyand wrath considered a byproduct of intimacyas is the occasional impulse to dismantleeverything you''ve createdand start from scratchthis destruction was followed by a promise to rebuildto never destroy the same way again

Serafina Bersonsage chronicles the evolution and dissolution of a literary critic-cum-storybook villain. Frustrated by the Midwest, the titular witch flees a small town for an even smaller academia, where she develops a crush on a dead poet, has a date in a psych ward and renames herself at a rest stop Starbucks before venturing into the woods.

Walter Moore's my lungs are a dive bar offers gritty and tender poems-poems of empathy and punkish, neo-beat irony. A homeless person who gives you a cigarette. Corey Van Landingham writes, "This is the voice of a casual prophet, a rapscallion, a hoarse cough in the back of a dark bar, a bloodied knuckle dragging across an iron window grate"

Factory poems made in a factory, soaked in factory dreams yet unrequited.

I was standing(You were there)Then I fell down there was no reasonto have fallen except there wasa snap I broke my legI was standingthen I fell no one could fathomhow taking one stepcould shatter me into pieces (don't lose your headit is ok if you die) the doctor said I would breakbones the rest of my life 17 so far I might never forgivea broken promise (my mother said:"You never did knowwhen to shut your mouth") Like fatherlike daughter my aunt told mehe killed himselfto spite me My Father was bothDavid and Goliath

Consider the inside of your brain a forest.Every day you plant a new row of trees. You're growing, see?You're busy gathering, so busy planting, and you love it, but it's dirty work. You go to bed every night with a sore back, swollen knees. It's hard work but you love it. It's your brain, after all, the home you're stuck with.One day you step back to survey the forest. You expect all your hard work to make straight lines and strong branches and growth worth celebrating, but instead there is catastrophe. There are only misshapen twisted trunks growing sideways instead of up, leaf-less branches that can't find the sun, and rot that runs down to the roots.So you set the whole thing on fire and start over.As you dig the soil to build again, you discover an avalanche of bones.You knew who they belonged to once, before they belonged to you. You stand in the rubble, trying to sort them by name, by shape, by smell, and nothing really makes sense, you can't sleep, until you get fed up at the mess and start put them together into a new shape. First a foundation, then a frame, windows, a cathedral of a room and a staircase that ends at the top of what trees are left, a skylight to let in the sun, to stare at the stars and contemplate where to go next.Anyways, this is a story. And your brain isn't a forest but mine might be. If it were, I'd invite you in, let you touch the trees and smell the soot. I'd open the door so we could watch together as the sun set behind the palace of bones, dance in the great hall under the chandelier made out of teeth. You could laugh with me, cry with me, sleep next to me holding hands and dream in my colors but make no mistake, this is not your story. Leave your ego at the edge of the woods, your judgment, your expectations, any preconceived notion of a woman, of what it means to be human, leave your brain out of this mess because it's not yours to claim. This is my story. And you can listen, but make no mistake this story isn't for you. This one's for me.

I call her my love, my angel, my Kansas City star, she tells me she can't get dressed today, her crown broke then she changes her dress twice to get that perfect twirl when spinning around hair in wispy pig tails, insisting on my violet perfume to make her just perfectly ready. She sits on my lap and she knows, today she goes back home, she holds her locket with my picture in the silver hollow hue, and says whenever I open this you are telling me that you love me, and then she cries when I suggest clasping the heart, I don't want you to stop loving me.

Join poet Jason Preu for an adventurous and spell-binding romp through the world of Purple Wizards and Neon-Bright Exceptionalisms. This book bends traditional design, including drawings, lined paper, appendices, and more unique surprises. Preu brings a light-heart and joyous nature to both playful and serious poems.

Sharon Rodrigues highlights and exposes the homeless problem in affluent American suburbs by photographing and interviewing displaced individuals in her hometown of Olathe, Kansas, a wealthy suburb of Kansas City. This riveting book includes hand-written essays by Rodriguez which recount the stories told by her subjects. This two year project began as part of Rodriguez' ongoing artistic interest in marginalized communities and has been featured as part of the Johnson County Library sequence "Bear Witness" which explores art as activism. Her exhibition was entitled "Shining the Light on the Homeless of Johnson County." This book is the culmination of that gallery exhibit.

These poems travel from the dark places the poets have been, to the love of some of the many people who've got them out of them. They dance across the spine of the book spanning a correspondence between the two poets. It reminds us all to put the pungent and sweet things in life where we can appreciate them, our mouths.